Spike the Chinchilla
Sadly Spike developed dental problems and after a long fight and trips to several experts we made the difficult decision to have him euthanised in January 2006 at 5 years of age. For more information on dental problems see the Rodents and Chewing. and Emergency Feeding pages.
OK so I only went into Pet's at Home to get some chinchilla food for Fluff but there was this really cute Silver Mosaic male chin who came over and talked to me. After spending the afternoon agonising about it I finally went back and bought him. Poor old Fluff lost the downstairs of her cage temporarily until I'd had him neutered, waited the 6 weeks for it to be safe and then managed to introduce the two of them.
Poor old Spike had to have two more operations when he caught a toe in a small hole where corners of the cage met and ended up hanging by it. It was very worrying - when my husband got him down he could not use his leg at all and had to be anaesthetised to have an x-ray and to have his toe amputated. Luckily he hadn't broken the leg, but it was a couple of weeks before we could tell that he hadn't done permanent damage to the hip or nerves. Then the foot didn't heal properly - the bone ended up exposed and so he had to have another operation on it. He was, however, completely back to normal in a few weeks. It just goes to show how careful you have to be with cages. See the photos at the bottom of the Chinchilla Cage Page to see just how small the hole was. More info on the Chinchilla Update page.
Spike inna tube.
Nothing like a good scratch!
Go away I'm hiding!
Got any Raisins?
